The present invention relates to the horizontal casting of metal, particularly steel, wherein the casting product is preferably a thin and wide ingot. Moreover the invention relates particularly to the horizontal casting of flat ingots and castings, wherein the liquid metal is discharged from a storage vessel into a mold provided for continuous casting in the horizontal direction. The flow from the storage vessel into the mold is an intermittent one and the casting is intermittantly extracted from the mold with holding times or pauses interposed. The term "thin and wide" in describing the casting or ingot is to be understood to mean a flat casting in which a cross section is of rectangular configuration, and the long side corresponding to the width of the casting having at least twice the thickness or height of the ingot.
Method and equipment for carrying out the aforementioned process is known generally, whereby from a practical point of view a 30 mm extraction path may be used for one extraction step followed by a retraction of maximum 1 mm; a hold down or delay time of 1 second is interposed between casting steps with an average casting speed of 2 m per minute. The cross section is to be the equivalent of a circle of about 150 mm diameter. In case of a current casting the speed is somewhat higher.
The mold contours are to be matched to the rather complex process which the casting itself undergoes including here quenching, reheating, cooling and the like. A change in the stroke length as far as the withdrawing is concerned, requires unfortunately a new and different mold contour and could in cases approach in principle an unlubricated mold for vertical casting. In such a case however, one would encounter the known drawbacks of a rather uncontrolled skin formation for withdrawal speeds of less than 5 meters per minute. Morever such a product exhibits rather poor surface quality and is almost unusable. For very thin and wide castings, socalled thin slabs, one may encounter up to 100% waste. Moreover, in view of these dimensions, the skin could be weakened to a considerable extent, so that a rupture and skin perforation may occur quite frequently. The known process moreover is simply not useable for high production rates and casting speeds.
In order to improve the situation here one has to change and modify i.e. increase the withdrawal speed and withdrawal length. Possibly the holding period should be reduced.
For known reasons the mold cannot be lubricated in the horizontal casting process, so that the power or throughput of such process can only approximate to some extent but never reach the productivity level of a vertical or curved casting operation.